Congress rejects Feijóo's investiture in the first vote: 172 votes against 178

MADRID, 27 Sep. (EUROPA PRESS) -

This Wednesday, the Plenary Session of Congress rejected the investiture of the leader of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, as President of the Government. As expected, in this first vote there were 178 deputies against and 172 in favor.

As established by the Rules of the House, the vote was public and by call, which means that each deputy stood up when he was appointed to proclaim his vote out loud: yes, no or abstention. His honorable Members have been called in alphabetical order, based on a letter chosen at random: specifically, the vote has begun with the 'no' of the PSOE deputy Adriana Maldonado.

In this first vote, an absolute majority was required, 176 supports, but Alberto Núñez Feijóo not only has not reached that figure, but he has not even won since he has obtained 172 votes from the PP (137 deputies), Vox (33), Canary Coalition (1) and UPN (1), compared to the 178 'noes' that PSOE (121), Sumar (31), ERC (7), Junts (7), Bildu (6), PNV (5) and BNG ( 1).

In any case, the legislation establishes a second vote within 48 hours that will take place this Friday, in which an absolute majority is no longer required, but at least winning the vote, having more 'yeses' than 'noes'. But in view of the positions reflected in the investiture debate, everything indicates that Feijóo's investiture will not prosper in the 'second round' either.

The president of Congress, the socialist Francina Armengol, must go to the zarzuela palace to inform the head of state of the result of the investiture votes for the 'popular' leader. and what is foreseeable is that the King will call a new round of consultations next week in which he will presumably propose the assignment to the second most voted on 23J, Pedro Sánchez, head of the PSOE list.

There are no dates yet, but Congress estimates that this second investiture debate could be held in the second half of October or early November, depending on the PSOE's negotiations with the half-dozen parliamentary allies it would need.

Of course, this Wednesday's vote activates the two-month period provided for in Article 99 of the Constitution to achieve an investiture because, if on November 27 no one has managed to overcome this vote and the blockade persists, the King will dissolve the Cortes and There will be new elections on January 14.

For these cases of electoral repetition, Congress has already modified the Electoral Law, setting only 47 days between the call and the holding of elections, since all the deadlines of the procedure are reduced, including the electoral campaign, which is only one week.